Saturday’s Big 12 contest between Oklahoma State and Baylor will see a match-up of two of the top quarterbacks in the country, and it should be quite the show for college football fans who enjoy some good aerial shows on the field on Saturdays.
Oklahoma State’s Brandon Weeden has thrown for 2,436 yards and 19 touchdowns and has slowed down his interception rate as the Cowboys all of a sudden are thinking about a BCS championship, if not just a Big 12 championship. Baylor’s Robert Griffin III has been called one of the five best football players (not just quarterbacks) in the college game according to one scout I have spoken with, and he has been nothing short of amazing this season. Entering this weekend’s game RGIII has thrown 22 touchdown passes and has been intercepted just twice.
But what about the running backs?
While Griffin and Weeden may be putting up huge numbers in what could be a back-and-forth kind of game, lost in the shuffle is what may be the most important key to the game: The running game.
When the game gets close to ending and the offenses for both sides are trying to hold on to the football and possibly wear some clock down, the focus may shift to the rushing offenses of both teams. Baylor head coach was asked what challenges he thinks Oklahoma State brings to the game and the answer was not Weeden or wide receiver Justin Blackmon (although we’re sure they are in his notes).
“Running the football,” Briles said this week during his weekly conference call and press conference. “They’ve got a couple good running backs, they make things happen, protect well up front and then everybody’s familiar with [Justin] Blackmon and everything he’s capable of doing. And their other receivers. They’ve got some guys that have caught a lot of balls and made a lot of plays over the last few years offensively. Defensively, just real sound. [They] mix it up enough to keep you on edge from an offensive standpoint. [They are] talented enough to do a lot of things schematically, offensively and defensively, and have enough depth to keep people fresh. That’s what’s working to their advantage. They’re a good football team, that’s why they’re doing what they’re doing.”
Team comparisons
Let’s take a quick look at some of the numbers for these teams, shall we?
Total Offense
Baylor is averaging 549.7 yards per game, which is good for second in the nation. Oklahoma State is just over a yard behind that average, with 548.6 ypg, which is good for third in the nation. I think it is safe to say we can call this one a push.
Passing Offense
Oklahoma State has an edge here on paper with 399.3 ypg through the air (2nd) compared to Baylor’s 354.8 ypg (7th). If this game comes down to needing to complete a big pass both sides look equipped to pull it off, but we’ll give a slight nod to the Cowboys on this one.
Rushing Offense
Baylor has a clear advantage when you look at the numbers, averaging 208.3 ypg on the ground (21st) compared to Oklahoma State’s 161.1 ypg (56th), but let’s take a slightly closer look.
Robert Griffin III has 295 rushing yards and two touchdowns to back-up the job done by Terrance Ganaway this season (570 yards, 7 touchdowns). Ganaway is averaging 5.5 yards per carry as well, which is not too bad, but consider that he has combined for 72 yards on the gorund against Kansas State and Texas A&M and averaged under three yards per attempt in those games and you can see that against stuffer competition the Baylor running game becomes more of a hindrance than it does a positive. Baylor was held to under 90 yards of rushing offense in both of those games, which they lost.
Meanwhile Oklahoma State has two running backs with at least seven touchdowns, with Jeremy Smith (7) and Joseph Randle (12), which should indicate that the Cowboys have more weapons to choose from on offense. Randle’s worst single rushing average was 3.3 ypc against Kansas, when he carried the football just seven times in a rout of the Jayhawks.
Baylor has the better numbers, sure, but the edge goes to Oklahoma State in this one.
